High Demand Overwhelms Online Role-Playing Game Last Epoch Servers
Last Epoch, a notable online role-playing action game, has experienced surging online activity, resulting in server capacity issues. Following its official Steam release, the game has amassed considerable attention, causing some users to struggle to access online play.
On February 22, the day after the version 1.0 release, Last Epoch witnessed an impressive 176,035 concurrent users, approximately six times its pre-release level. This surpassed the peak records of Fall Guys (172,213), Resident Evil 4 remake (168,191), Left 4 Dead 2 (162,399), Enshrouded (160,405), and even Diablo IV’s peak on Steam, which was around six times lower (28,836). It now looks set to overtake another notable rival — Path of Exile (211,637).
As a result of the server issues, Eleventh Hour Games, the developers, advised players to temporarily utilize offline mode. Showing gratitude for user support and patience, they offered assurances of problem resolution. As a small compensation, they gifted every purchaser with a free item — The Autumnal Wrap, a virtual cloak.
However, many players reacted negatively to the technical state of the final version, resulting in a significant number of new negative reviews. Consequently, its rating for the past 30 days dropped to 67%, decreasing the overall rating to 79% (with over 13.1k and 36.5k reviews respectively). The general score before the premiere was 85%.
Dissatisfied customers criticized the developers for their poor preparation for the full launch and their slow response to fixing the problems. Complaints about the unavailability of in-game paid features in offline mode were numerous. Many noted they couldn’t log into the game for several hours.
Nonetheless, Last Epoch continues to be praised for its diverse character development system and engrossing gameplay reminiscent of the old school style. It is touted as one of the best games in the genre and an “excellent alternative to Diablo and Path of Exile”. Players noticed substantial improvements to the graphics. In addition to visual enhancements, the full version introduced two new subclasses, items, skills, adversaries, trade factions and much more. The complete list of additions and changes can be found here.
Last Epoch, initially dubbed the “dream role-playing action game” by enthusiasts on Reddit, has emerged from early access after almost five years since its initial release (the public version made its debut on Steam in April 2019). Total sales have surpassed 1 million copies even before the full premiere.
